


Magnum Bullets

by The Tinglenator (Misha_McCarthy)



Series: Supernatural One-Shots [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parent John Winchester, Caring John Winchester, Character Study, Dead Mary Winchester, Drabble, Drinking, Family, Gen, John Winchester Tries, No Mary Winchester, One Shot, POV John Winchester, Parent John Winchester, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Protective John Winchester, Short One Shot, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misha_McCarthy/pseuds/The%20Tinglenator
Summary: After his wife's death, John Winchester is struggling to deal with a world full of monsters that hope to rip his throat out at every turn... and taking care of two toddlers in the back seat. Somewhere between driving dozens of hours straight, hunting the thing that'd killed Mary, and trying not to get his ass killed, he missed the fact that his sons had grown up. One-shot.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester, Dean Winchester & John Winchester & Sam Winchester, John Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Supernatural One-Shots [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877215
Kudos: 15





	Magnum Bullets

His breath burned at his eyes and tugged at his chest, creating a frothy cloud which carried the distinct scent of liquor. Tattered cloth clung to him despite the fact that it was mere remnants of a jacket, hanging on to the sweat produced along his back and seeping through an old shirt, billowing, flaking off with every new breeze. Bright light shone in from a building in front of him, whose name, origin, and menu he didn’t care for. The only thing it could do was serve him. His mouth produced saliva at the very thought of more to drink, but he couldn’t satisfy that desire. The cool metal handle was hard enough to grasp as it was, with the sky being devoid of flickering stars or the slow, slinking movements of a new moon. Right now he needed to speak with someone. He needed a job.

Whenever Bill entered in from the back room and caught his gaze, he could feel the questions that resounded in time with his hands, tapping on the wood bar, awaiting the most recent news. The man of the bar, he liked to call him. Harvelle was an easy man to get along with and an even easier guy to hunt alongside. A smile worked its way up to the edges of his lips, but he didn’t need to ask. Bill would have the answers prepared, sometimes in a manilla folder, other times a piece of folklore only a few locations long.

“I thought _we_ were supposed to serve you drinks, John.” Against the rest of the cheery laughter or wicked tales of other hunters, his joke fell as flat as his expression. “The hell do you think you’re doing, driving in this sorta mess? Where are your kids?”

His thumb directed itself backwards, or… perhaps to the right. “In tuh back,” he drawled, hardly caring for however noticeable it might be. It would come as no surprise to him if one day, Bill finally asked why the hell he carried on in such a manner. Even to a naive eye, Bill’s concern would be evident- and he was probably worried for more than just one hunting friend. Bill was worried for _his_ boys, kids he'd hardly ever seen. It didn’t matter how many times he’d discretely mentioned that Dean was a smart kid. Bill didn’t know what it was like to have two sons, and yet he was schooled in every instance about how well Bill and his wife cared for their sole daughter, who was hardly half Dean’s age. It was all well and nice to have a woman caring for a dependable home, one that you can come home to at any time, for any reason. But he didn’t have that. He didn’t want those luxuries rubbed in his face, either.

Screw the men who had that proper-type family. The ones who’d find themselves in bed with someone who made them complete, could glow like a beacon that lit up the roadway home after numerous hours of work. How the hell could a man like that, used to such lush welcomes and tidy bed makings, ever survive a world where your loved ones were simply next on the list for a supernatural occurrence? It’d been years since he or his sons had known the meaning of stability, and he preferred it that way. Travellers were hardly taken as bait. It was the plump, perfect units that were predictable and made for easy snatches. If there was anything to be enjoyed from the life of a nomad hunter such as himself, it was the uncertainty. The chance, the game and the gambles he played each day and night. The fear strengthened each sense beyond that of just the regular five. The unknown stole away with the sickness in his ever-churning stomach and gave him adrenaline. It ceaselessly pumped through his veins as though his blood was always meant to contain this hormone, this chemical he now knew he could never do without again. The ideas of being held in delicate arms, one’s children comforted from their sobs by a slender frame, the fantasies had all but vanished from his memory. It was something Bill would never understand and he wasn’t about to attempt a lengthy explanation.

Glancing up from the polished wood surface only allowed him to catch some drifting words of Bill’s last sentence. “... should be in a motel, or staying here.”

He waved a hand at such a notion. Whether the topic was referring to his sons or the three of them together, it was that better they make do day-by-day. It was good for his boys, to strengthen and steel them against how cruel the hidden world was. The world that no one mentions, leastwise not to their children. Then their children grow up, lose the love of their life, become stuck with two young sons, and are forced to navigate this world by themselves. No, they all needed to adjust to the reality of it all. The reality none could ever truly escape, either through knowledge or ignorance.

Sometimes he gazed into a friend’s eyes, a friend like Bill, and he wondered just who was reflected back to him. Certainly not the person whom he expected to become. Sometimes when he heard an alternate voice of reason, he was mystified at how his own inner voice could sound so drastically different. Sometimes, Bill leaned over the counter as he was doing now and spoke so close that with every inhale, there was no chance that he wasn’t able to smell the cheap bear where it had tainted and sizzled at his lips.

“John,” he’d say, “Do you know how it feels to be a father?” As if he couldn’t feel anything right now. As if Bill knew exactly what process his mind had taken to block everything out. “It feels wonderful. There’s nothing about it I’d ever change.”

Most commonly, he disagreed. The only wonderful thing he had felt in recent years was the rush generated as he swung an axe and felt every strip of muscle it snapped and flew through the neck of a vampire. It was the only accomplishment to be gained while festering emotions drifted off, lost somewhere between the ashes of his dream house and amber booze that he reserved for especially bad nights.

OOO

As they slam squeaking trunks, both men want to ask something, and neither of them will. Not tonight. Probably not ever. The wind howls past, screeching with mad laughter as it slowly tears away a lonely structure built by man. On occasion, the Harvelle Roadhouse would groan, or dust would twirl into a cloud and sprinkle itself along the deck and fence, only to be grated against rotting oak. Each grain of sandy soil would have its chance to scratch and triturate what was once an organism that grew and developed, unlike what had withered into splinters and exposed nails.

He could imagine turning to Bill, saying, “What’d be left for your wife or that daughter a your’s, if a hunt went sideways? All those hard whiskeys you keep away from me?”

Past the chilling breeze and frost forming on the windows above where his sons tried to find a small moment of rest, he might have heard Bill reply with, “If you disappeared one of these nights, Winchester, your boys wouldn’t know ’till it ’came too late. And what then?”

Yes, a lot of people asked a question similar to that, when he took the time to fancy asking them theoreticals along such lines. One day when they truly asked, he wasn’t sure how he’d answer. Perhaps with, “I’m going to need a funeral pyre someday,” or, “I know they’d get by,” but most often his gaze would shift to the rear-view mirror, or the windows of his old car, and he’d see his lips forming the words “we’d all be lucky”.

OOO

He didn’t pray often. It appeared futile, in most cases. God probably wouldn’t care as to the wellbeing of just some man, in some countryside, in some state that not even the man can remember the name of. Once in a while it seemed as though God was making a point of just how little He worried. Miracle numbers of monsters in a single location were so common that they hardly seemed ‘miraculous’ by this point, while not once had he- nor any hunters he was aware of- had even a minor stroke of luck. In desperate situations, their luck suddenly ran drier than dry. If some devilish fiend had him marked as a harbinger for the gruesome demise of well-meaning men, then it would come as no shock to him.

Tonight was one of the few times he prayed. He didn’t pray solely to God, or some favourited Archangel, or a ‘lucky’ saint. He prayed to all of them, any holy figure that could take enough time out of their immortal lives to listen to his pleas. If he was to die tonight at the hands of some vile creature which had butchered the bodies of four women thus far, then that would be decided by fate. Should he survive another evening of horrific scenery and stenches, of being ripped open and alive, then he’d continue on acting as he had, raising his sons in the only way that seemed acceptable in such a blurry mind as his.

This was for Mary. This was for Dean. This was for Sam.

OOO

His eldest was awake, lying only half asleep in order that he might be roosted when his father entered. No amount of softly handling the motel door would prevent Dean from sitting up in bed, brushing off the melatonin with a rough shake of his head, and fetching the medical supplies. There festered a large, wriggling, blistering hot and painfully cold spot in his chest whenever he sat down on his oldest son’s bed, next to a window with blinds drawn over it and a salt line at its sill. This deep, insatiable hole inside of him devoured any pleasant feelings at returning to relative safety for the night, for being able to see his children again and ensure that they were alright. His heart, his pit ate him up while he stared at a shard of glass poking through the small, cheap curtains. The face that glared back in loathing seemed… slightly more familiar than the last time he’d caught a glance at it. There were some emotions springing up around the outskirts of his heart and his eyes then, as he willed his mind’s eye to conclude the production of imagery he was certain would never, ever be forgotten.

He shifted where he looked by only a fraction to observe the comedically inexpensive curtains this motel had managed to come across. If he’d recently been considering scraping together a larger sum for his sons to use while he was away next time, the thoughts had fled his mind. Why should he spend more time searching for supplies that they could live without, while in the meantime men hollered for help they wouldn’t receive and children bawled for parents that had long since passed? Where once he might have spoiled Sam and Dean with candy to amend for his truly terrible skills in cooking, he now saw no reason as to why they wouldn’t be able to scrounge something up to last a while longer.

Dean had returned with the medical kit and a wet towel, entirely prepared to go through the regular procedure of fixing up his father so they could be abandoned again sooner rather than later. He no longer had the energy to tell his son that someday, all of this would be worth it, because he’d finally avenge this torn family. And the outcome would immediately rectify every challenge and every hardship- every new school and every extra day that they had to stretch food reserves further. He knew that any words spoken along those lines would be lies. Not lies as dictated by the receiver of the message nor lies due to ignorance, but plainly awful lies. He could not unsee what he’d seen, undo what he’d done.

This road he found himself cruising down, the road of revenge and blood, it was not one that he took pleasure in anymore. It did not ease his regrets or restrain the size of the pit in his heart. Events would compound upon themselves until he was no longer capable of shoving them aside, and he wasn’t sure if he would falter in that moment, seeing another victim mutilated or another friend lost before his eyes. But it didn’t matter if he faltered or not. He _would_ die along this road. Perhaps in the ditch where muck accumulates throughout the months and where his body might lie for days before being spotted. Maybe in the middle of the street, for everyone to see. This road was never-ending, limitless in all directions. There would be no escaping it now. But he had started this for Mary, and he would finish this for his children.

This was for his family.


End file.
